Senators will vote on an amendment crafted by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) that would require the State Department to report on how many of the millions of people currently supported by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) are actually ……..refugees.

According to former AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) staffer – now critic – MJ Rosenberg, Mark Kirk cultivated a relationship with AIPAC since he was a Congressional aide. According to Rosenberg, between 2000 and 2010 – Representative Mark Kirk received $1,025,437 from “pro-Israel” PACs, making him #7 out of all members of Congress and #1 of all House members.

According to Rosenberg: It is not because Kirk is pro-Israel. Virtually every member of the House and Senate supports our special relationship with and aid to Israel. It is because no one is more reliable than Mark Kirk when it comes to supporting the status quo. His idea of supporting Israel is simply to keep things just as they are, which, not coincidentally, is also the way the lobby sees it…

The lobby and its PACs will be going all out for Kirk this year [2010]. In fact, his election will surely be their #1 priority. If he wins, the lobby will have a stalwart enforcer of the status quo who can be expected to pressure his colleagues to fall in line.

U of Chicago SJP’s mock wall

I’ve got to hand it to Chicago, though. Some top of the line rad activists there took down Chicago Friends of Israel (CFI ) on the University of Chicago Students for Justice in Palestine’s mock wall.

According to one CFI member, this de facto annexation of Palestinian land is not illegal because Israel is allegedly not occupying any Palestinian territory. He also claimed that annexation is strictly a legal term and because there have been no legal opinions condemning the wall, Israel has the privilege of constructing the wall along whichever route it pleases. I curtly reminded him of the ICJ ruling.

The CFI member then argued that Palestine never existed and couldn’t have ever existed “because the letter ‘P’ is not part of the Arabic language”. Two other CFI protesters quickly urged him to stop speaking.

U of Chicago SJP’s mock wall

(Hat tip Michael Levin)

About Annie Robbins

Annie Robbins is Editor at Large for Mondoweiss, a mother, a human rights activist and a ceramic artist. She lives in the SF bay area. Follow her on Twitter @anniefofani

You have to admit they’ve got us this time, Syd. Then again, how can Jews live in Jerusalem, or indeed calls themselves Jews, when there is no soft-g sound in Hebrew? That ghimel with a “tchuptchik” isn’t fooling anyone, and Yoos and Yerusalem sound just as silly as Balestine.

“The CFI member then argued that Palestine never existed and couldn’t have ever existed “because the letter ‘P’ is not part of the Arabic language”. ”

That’s a non-sequitur, they called it Filistin. But there is a distinct possibility that Senator Kirk no longer exists. He suffered a serious stroke in January (no doubt caused by too many AIPAC mind melds). I hear he is still in a rehab facility: See Photo, update on Senator Mark Kirk recovery http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=8633734

FROM Robert Naiman, Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy, 11/23/12:“Would It Make a Difference to Progressives if Norman Solomon Goes to Congress?”

(excerpts) A key paradox for progressives of our national political life goes something like this: everybody complains about Congress, but nobody does anything about it. . .
. . .Even now, the national infrastructure for effective caring is too weak. If the Progressive Caucus and the groups that support it effectively exercised all the functions of a political party, the fact that Norman Solomon is a candidate for Congress with a serious possibility of winning would be foremost in the consciousness of every pragmatic peace advocate in the United States. Every pragmatic peace advocate would know that Norman is running, every pragmatic peace advocate would know that there is a primary on June 5 and that voting by mail is already underway, every pragmatic peace advocate would know that Norman will survive the primary if he places second, every pragmatic peace advocate would understand why it matters if Norman survives the primary, and every pragmatic peace advocate would be doing their bit to help ensure that Norman survives the primary. . .
. . .I am looking forward to Norman going to Congress because I know that Norman will work to raise the profile of the Progressive Caucus and will work to help make the Progressive Caucus more effective. Right now progressives in Congress are fighting to end the wars, to prevent war with Iran, to curtail drone strikes, to cut the military budget and redirect the money to human needs. But too few progressives in the country even know these fights are taking place, still fewer are engaged in them.
With Norman in the Progressive Caucus, with Norman on TV, more people would know about these fights and more people would be engaged in them.Having Norman in Congress would do a lot to help build the progressive movement for political reform in this country. Check out his website. – http://solomonforcongress.com/ Think about what you could do to help move the ball forward.*

(excerpts) . . . Norman Solomon
The long-time anti-war activist, co-founder of the great media criticism group FAIR, and author of “Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State” – a critique of America’s decades of militarism and the role which its media plays in perpetuating it — is about as close to a perfect Congressional candidate as it gets. He’s written 11 other books, including “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death”: the title speaks for itself. He’s running in the heavily Democratic California district being vacated by the retiring Rep. Lynn Woolsey. A newly released poll from an independent Democratic pollster shows him with a serious chance to win (there is an open primary in June, and the top two candidates, regardless of party affiliation, will then face each other in a November run-off).In 2002 and 2003, Solomon led three trips to Iraq to try to avert the war (trips that included former and current members of Congress), and was one of the most widely featured media voices during that period opposing the attack on moral, legal and prudential grounds. . .. . . Solomon demands diplomacy, not threats of military force, to resolve the current disputes with Iran. He decries the lack of criminal prosecutions for Wall Street defrauders and Bush torturers as a violation of the rule of law. . .
. . .When it comes to Congressional candidates, it just doesn’t get any better than Norman Solomon. If you have any residual doubt, just look at this remarkable 2007 TV appearance he did on CNN with Glenn Beck, which he wrote about here, when he used the opportunity to detail and denounce the effect of corporate ownership of America’s establishment media (including CNN). He’s been doing this for 30 years and there’s zero chance he will change or compromise any of it if he wins. I can’t even imagine what it’d be like to have Norman Solomon in Congress, but I’d certainly like to see it. You can — and, I hope, will — support his campaign here. –https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/solomonforcongress?refcode=site-thermometer

Sometimes I wonder how many Jews offered Right of Return were actually expelled by the Romans, and how many are actually only the descendants? And should we have a subcommitee to resolve Khazar questions?

PS. However irrelevant, Khazar question is very interesting. I read an article discussing markers on Y chromosomes of Ashkenazi Jews. Apparently, two “priestly” groups, Cohens and Levys, have their somewhat separate markers that very consistently point to the origin of Cohens in Middle East/Fertile Crescent, while Levys markers connect them to Samoyeds and Aitay peoples, i.e. Siberia. Non-priestly Ashkenazi Jews have more eclectic markers, including a group that is well represented in Levant outside Fertile Crescent, Turkey and Aegean, which would point to Philistines. Siberian/Khazarian Y-chromosomes belong to 15-20% of Ashkenazis, about 1/2 of them Levys.

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